


Point Nemo

by Katarable



Category: Gorillaz
Genre: Character Study, Existential Angst, Gen, Geographical Isolation, Isolation, Phase Three (Gorillaz), plastic beach
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-04
Updated: 2020-03-04
Packaged: 2021-02-23 06:40:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,231
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23007322
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Katarable/pseuds/Katarable
Summary: The members of Gorillaz contemplate what it means to be at the end of the world.
Relationships: Murdoc Niccals & Noodle, Murdoc Niccals & Stuart "2D" Pot, Russel Hobbs & Noodle
Comments: 2
Kudos: 30





	Point Nemo

“We are crammed packed and it’s getting more and more. Escalating. The over load. Humanity is now squeezed into this tiny plastic bubble. Everything getting faster and faster, whirling towards an inevitable conclusion. A single point on the horizon, or in the middle of the ocean, say. The entire of time and history and evolution is heading towards a certain point. Point Nemo. Plastic Beach. That’s what Plastic Beach is, I reckon: the end of days, the point of no return. It’s right here. It’s right now. It’s upon us. The future has finally come on, today…” 

-Murdoc Niccals, “iTunes Interview: Plastic Beach”

* * *

It’s strange, 2D thinks.

  
They’re literally in the middle of nowhere.

  
Sometimes he thinks it’s nice. The world is too jam packed these days. There’s too much everything. Not here. Out here there’s nothing but the walls of the submarine and the ocean surrounding them. The ocean is a deep blue-green. Pretty color.

  
Sometimes he thinks it’s lonely. Just he, Murdoc, and the cyborg. For miles and miles. For forever.

  
He conjures up some imaginary friends sometimes. They never last very long, but they’re nice to him and they make him laugh. Then Murdoc asks him what he’s laughing about and he says “nothin.’” Normally he’d get hit for saying something like that. But Murdoc doesn’t seem to care anymore. He’s consumed by the album. He sleeps and breathes Plastic Beach.

  
2D sleeps and breathes fear. Not necessarily the fear of something coming after him, or the fear of a disaster. It’s more like the fear of insignificance. The fear of fading away. 

  
“If a tree falls in the woods and there’s no one around to hear it, does it make a sound?”

  
He asked Murdoc that question once, to which he got the answer “piss off faceache.” Now, Murdoc simply shrugs.

  
Things have changed. That question has changed.

_  
If we’re here and there’s no one around to see us, do we exist?_

* * *

Somewhere on this planet is a place where no one exists.

  
Noodle doesn’t quite know how to feel about that. 

  
Maybe it’s here. It’s certainly quiet enough. She used to love the quiet back in those halcyon demon days. She misses those days, as difficult as they were; Noodle is still really proud of how DARE came out, and she’s never known happiness like the first day it went number 1. She also had a home back then. She knew who she was back then. She had Feel Good Inc. back then. She likes DARE more (obviously,) but there’s something special about Feel Good Inc. It’s the song that defines them all. It plays on the radio and says “this is us, we are Gorillaz and we matter.”

  
Nothing matters out here. There’s nothing around that _can_ matter.

  
Once she’d been sitting on her island plunking out chords when Murdoc sat down beside her. He wasn’t supposed to be there, but Noodle didn’t really want to argue, and judging by the smell of Corona hanging over him, any argument made wouldn’t go anywhere.

  
“Why are we here?”

  
It was the first time he’d given her an honest answer to anything.

  
“Dunno, kid. To eat, sleep, shit, screw…make music…exist.”

  
“Hm.”

  
Silence. And then: “If the world didn’t need people to keep it spinning then there wouldn’t be people, eh?”

  
That’s what has always made sense in her 9-year-old brain. Eat, sleep, shit, screw, make music, exist. Carry on. Live your life and the Earth will live with you. But somewhere on a planet with 7 billion warm bodies there’s a place where no one exists.

  
The world _doesn’t_ need people to keep spinning.

  
She wonders if maybe it doesn’t need her after all. 

* * *

Russel has always been the least of the group.

  
Just the least. Least popular, least skinny, least patient. Everyone probably thinks he’s dead, and sometimes he wonders if anyone would care if he were. Gorillaz couldn’t find another singer, or another guitarist, and they sure as hell couldn’t find another bassist to glue them together. But they could get away with finding another drummer.

  
That’s why he’s been walking for God knows how long—to prove that he isn’t replaceable. He is valuable to them. He’s also doing it for Noodle and 2D. He genuinely cares about those two. And he cares about Murdoc in his own way; sort of like the way one cares for a cat that’s an asshole. All three of them are worth walking through the seas for. Nothing in the ocean is a threat to him at this point; he could crush a great white shark like a stress ball. A school of silver fish swims by him and pays him no mind.

  
That’s amazing. They’ve managed to stay together somehow on their journey. Even if they don’t get wherever they’re going, they have each other.

  
Russel’s school is gone now.

  
It’s just him.

  
The least.

  
Alone.

  
Then he spies a bright yellow raft.

* * *

Murdoc keeps waking up in cold sweats.

  
It’s fucking annoying. Everything he thought he knew suddenly doesn’t feel true anymore.

  
First, there’s the album. It’s kickass. A conceptual, collaborative, and technical marvel. It’s the creative peak Gorillaz was always meant to reach. But once it’s done it’s done. That’s it. all it will do in the end is add to a bottomless pile of DVDs, DVDs that people don’t even use anymore. Then there’s Murdoc himself. He thought everyone needed him, that not one of the 7 billion sods on this planet could live without Murdoc Niccals. But now that all he has is plastic, he sees that the only one who really needs him is 2D. Maybe. Sometimes it seems like Murdoc needs him instead.

  
Next, there’s everything else. He has no idea what day of the week it is. He still drinks, but it’s a force of habit more than anything. Alcohol has no purpose anymore. It used to numb the pain, but numb is all he knows now. He can’t remember the sound of Russel’s voice. He can’t remember what the real Noodle looks like. He can’t remember what _he_ looks like. There are no mirrors on Plastic Beach.

  
“Why are we here?”

  
Cyborg Noodle looks at him coldly—the only way she knows how to look. He shouldn’t have asked her that. She can’t answer. The look on her face says “we are retreating to Point Nemo to escape the wrath of the Black Clouds and complete the third Gorillaz album.”

  
The real Noodle would have said “eat, sleep, shit, screw, make music, exist.”

  
The world is moving on without him, and it’s moving too fast. There are too many people, too many places, too many factories clouding the sky, too many grains of coke and too many batteries. No one remembers him except for his enemies. The pirates are going to catch up to him. Noodle and Russel are going to manifest out of nowhere and put a bullet in his head. 2D is going to say the words “I never needed you.” 

  
It had seemed like an escape at first. A perfect plastic place. A new beginning. Instead, it feels like something is going to end. It could be anything from the human race to the band’s patience with him. But something is going to end. And there’s no one close enough to attend the funeral.

**Author's Note:**

> Basically I listened to the iTunes session, did some research on Point Nemo, had an existential crisis, and projected it onto the band members.  
> HAPPY ANNIVERSARY PLASTIC BEACH!!! I’ve been on Plastic Beach lockdown all day; this album is one of my favorite things ever made. Artfully worded character studies are my jam.  
> Also Plastic Beach is a decade old and it was 100% RIGHT, CLIMATE CHANGE IS REAL AND THE EARTH IS DROWNING IN GARBAGE, SUPPORT GREEN SOLUTIONS AND VOTE BLUE.  
> \-------  
> Thank you for reading this. Comments and kudos water my crops!  
> Yell at me on [tumblr](https://kataruhh.tumblr.com)


End file.
